Dec 12, 2014

Community Announcements - Bungle

Roadmap on forums

Twitch (Weekly events in planning): http://www.twitch.tv/fracturedspace

Okay thank you to those of you who have signed in to our Trello Board and started voting, it's really great to get instant feedback and views from you in such an easy to understand way.
Please be aware that your votes, while they are “likes”, they are also a guiding hand on the metaphorical tiller. As if a particular item is upvoted a lot we will look at maybe moving it up the development queue.

For those of you, who missed it or are here new now: Go here and you can see our public plans for the game. (We do have a couple of secrets/surprises).
To vote you will have to register on Trello.

Also as there has been some discussion on ship size we knocked up this Size Comparison

We have also moved our voice servers onto TeamSpeak. Server: TS3.fracturedspace.com

Lastly we are putting out some more early access items in our Founder Pack Update click here for the full post and all information, however the new packs are listed below:

All Forerunner Packs
1 early access exclusive normal ship skin (also included in the Harbinger pack) – Not the Goliath.

NEW PACK - Harbinger Pack - $20 ($10 if you already have a Forerunner pack)
Gives access to the game with founder status and the Harbinger status.
Gives 3 early access exclusive normal ship skins – for the Assassin, Sniper, Disruptor.
Gives 1 early access exclusive "legendary" ship skin, the Goliath skin for the USR Flagship.

NEW PACK - Harbinger Fleet Pack - $30 ($20 if you already have a Forerunner pack)
Same as the Harbinger pack + 4 Scavenger keys.

Latest Newsletter

Previous news:

Roadmap on Trello Board - more professional

Dev Q&A #1

Come talk to us

Dec 10, 2014

Patch Notes: Patch #3 BUILD 4

Community Announcements - Bungle

Join us at 1900GMT on www.Twitch.tv/fracturedspace
For a Dev Q&A.

Some layout and graphical issues with posting here. See original:

http://fracturedspace.com/forum/forum/fractured-space-news/news-and-information/1943-unscheduled-maintenance-16-00-patch-3-build-4#post1943

Resource Balance changes:

To prevent teams turning an early lead into an easy game and total Domination - we have altered the levels so they increase exponentially

New:
+ Added a field in the game "HUB" to for securely collect email addresses
(Disappears if email address has already been sent)
+ Added in game links to the HUB to our Facebook, Twitter, Twitch and our Forum so you can access your favourite form of social media to follow our journey.
+ Numeric display of server ping in top-left corner (if it looks like it always displays multiples of four milliseconds that’s an Unreal feature)
+ On login the client now checks if it is the right version and will give player a message if using incorrect client
+ New Mining Facilities added to Team Base Sectors – 2 for each team, owned from the start of the game. And can be capped.
+ New Jump Route added from Team Base Sectors to Gamma Sector. – One way.

+ Added the following changes to the Assassin Decoy:
-(Bug Fix) Being marked as an enemy, when it was spawned by an Ally.
-Now displaying name / health bar / level upgrade (Level shows 0: known bug).
-Now displaying the outline shader.

Changed:
+ Replaced home base capture indicators. Now there is a station icon that fills up.
+ Changed some planets in the background
+ Added front end audio
+ Credits added back into the results screen
+ Increased credits amounts added to game.
+ Query protocol added for backend management of game servers.
+ Ships now keep their orientation when they Jump to new sectors.
+ Gas Facility Resource income reduced by 50% (it is now equal to 3 Mining Facilities)
+ Gas Facility turns on after 10 minutes (up from 8).
+ Spacing of stations in Alpha and Beta Sectors adjusted
+ Placeholder Minimap improvements

Fixed:
+ HUD crash bug on level load
+ Fixed crash in certain circumstances when login fails caused by incorrect memory deallocation usage
+ Options - Fix Front End to properly represent Full screen Mode
+ Results - Fix fonts sizes due to new font
+ Profile - Fix some text alignment due to new font
+ Header - update XP numbers to include commas
+ HUD - Hide most of HUD elements when showing Scoreboard
+ Chat when dead. - Chatting at the end to come later....
+ Jump and Warp-Home abilities will now maintain the player's last position and camera orientation.
+ Fixed the frigate Detect Drone - Now will actually reveal Assassins.
+ Fixed Label on Central Sector - Now G for Gamma

Known issues (Unfixed):
+ Occasionally when a player joins the game the minimap capture points are red and the bases are displayed as "S1" – restart client and rejoin resolved problem
+ The Decoy unit for the Assassin displays 0 level upgrades making it easy to identify as fake
+ The brightness setting will add +6 to the value if you click "Apply" or adjust graphical settings
+ Weapon audio (Blasters) on the Disruptor disappeared during a firefight and returned on re-spawn
+ If the game starts while the user is browsing the F1 ship menu, they are unable to chat - Pressing F1 again often fixes this.
+ Rare - The first person to join a server sees the map incorrectly display "te" and wrong coloured icons
+ The in-game pause menu elements are hard to select
+ Jump effects are not visible on enemy players
+ Using the "Jump Drive" ability in the middle of sectors Alpha and Beta occasionally restricts you from jumping

Dec 10, 2014

DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP – THE FRACTURED SPACE TRELLO BOARD

Community Announcements - Jamin

We want to make the development of Fractured Space as transparent as possible. To that end, we want to ensure you know what we’re up to; the high level features we’re working on and the bugs we’re fixing. To help you do that, we’ve set up a Trello Board so you can track our progress.

With Trello you’ll be able to see what big features – and some small upgrades – we have planned for each sprint, giving you a look at the overall roadmap for the game. You can comment on the cards, and up-vote what you’d like to see in the next release. If you want cards/features added then head over to the Forum and shout your requests from the rooftops.

So that’s Trello. Hopefully you get stuck in and join us in the development of the game. As we’ve been keen to stress at every stage, you’re an important in the cog of our development engine — and to create the best space combat game, your input is not only welcomed, but needed.

http://fracturedspace.com/blog/development-roadmap-the-fractured-space-trello-board/

Dec 1, 2014

Fractured Space - Patch #2, Build #3 - Now in Alpha

Community Announcements - Bungle

Maintenance: Patch #2 Build 3
Steam BuildID: 456684
Fixes
• Accelerated health regeneration system
o If you're not in conflict your health will regenerate significantly quicker, it’s a curve. You still need to be in a Forward Station.

• Increasing max upgrade level to 9 (You will need additional pylons… err mining stations)
o Upped from 3 levels to 9; makes base-capturing far easier when at high levels. Old level 1-3 is now 1-6, so an additional 3 levels added, part of the reason for this is to make the levels more gradual, a level 2 fighting a level 3 will be fine, but a level 2 against a level 8 will be in trouble.
o Higher levels will beat lower levels in a tug of war when capturing

• Fixed re-spawn times (Giving you more of a rest)
o So level 0 is 10 second re-spawn - then each additional level is an extra 5 seconds, plus additional time for length of game. Max is 75 seconds

• Audio fixes to address major audio bug
o We need people who have had this bug before to let us know if this is fixed as we never reproduced this in studio

Balancing

• Sniper Changes
o Missile damage halved.
o The charge bar (either side of crosshair) has been made more clear and obvious

• Disruptor Changes
o The cool down on disarm now 45 seconds (up from 30 seconds)
o Heal Drones:
----Range changed to radius of 6000m (Up from 4000m)
----Cooldown changed to 60 seconds (Up from 45 seconds)
----Duration change to 20 seconds (Down from 30 seconds)
----Heal amount changed to 0.023 (Up from 0.015)

Changes

• Graphics settings (Now play in ULTRA)
o Lower end spec PCs - "Low" is now even lower
o Beasty PCs - Added Ultra for even more lens flare (still not Star Trek levels)

• Join in progress
o Players can bolster teams mid game, will hopefully help with deserting

• Added taunts into the Crew voice over
o "You ain't so shiny now!"

• Ship selection available in pre-game countdown
o Press F1 and use the cursor keys - remember to exit the menu (F1 again)

• Ready message now explains how to change ships
o Press F1 and use the cursor keys - remember to exit the menu (F1 again)

• How to play video added to HUB screen
o There is now no excuse for not knowing, unless you skipped it....

• Added ship levels to player tags
o So you can see the level of your enemy as well as the team level.

Discuss it here: http://fracturedspace.com/forum/forum/main-category/main-forum/1405-discussion-patch-2#post1405
Or on the Steam forums

Nov 21, 2014

Fractured Space - Patch #1, Build #2

Community Announcements - Jamin

Hi all,

We're about to roll out the first patch for Fractured Space, which might mean that the servers will be down for a little while. When they're back up you can expect the following changes to the game:

1. FX added when entering capture spheres.
2. Fix for network bunch.packetId crash.
3. Side grade menu selection crash fixed.
4. The chat window will no longer become focused if the Debug Ship Selection menu is active.
5. Rebalancing Heal Drones - have reduced duration and increased cool down.
6. Increased all missile system projecitle speeds (at the expense of projectile life) to maintain range but allow missiles to close on ships even after current max upgrades.
7. Disabled UE4 automatic recovery of an old player state after a player is rejoining the same game. This fixes the teams not being properly balanced.
8. Fix for rare issue where ship spawned and not being able to ready up or do anything at all.
9. Updated sniper debris FX.
10. HUD - Cut long player names with ”...”
11. Adjusted the Unreal Splash video by lowering the volume.
12. Hangar - allow crew members to interrupt one another.

Many thanks for bearing with us here, and we'll catch you in the new and improved build for a battle or two. As always, your comments and feedback very much appreciated.

Jamin

Nov 20, 2014

Fractured Space - Now Available on Steam Early Access!

Community Announcements - Jamin

Fractured Space is now officially in Early Access! We've been hosting playtests with a small but ever expanding portion of our community for the past few months, and now we're ready to throw the doors open to the whole of Steam - we hope you'll join us.

Fractured Space has huge ambition in terms of its place in the space combat and team-based multilayer genres, and here at Edge Case Games we're changing our whole development philosophy in order to realise that.

We hope you'll join us in our open development journey, and we're keen to make sure your voice is heard. Don't like the flight model of a ship? Think the game should handle warping between sectors differently? We're keen to hear. And will be adapting and changing our development priorities with your thoughts in mind.

We really hope you get stuck in and enjoy the build that's gone live today. We know it's not completely without issue, however, and we're keen to emphasise the issues we're already aware of:

Known Issues

• Rare lock with the in game ship select menu (F1)
• Occasional UI crash out to front end
• Some debug text remaining
• Network stability issues
• Audio issues when playing consecutive games without a reset
• Team balancing has issues if players leave before start game
• Hub flash when logging in
• Game options – coming soon
• Brightness not saved between sessions
• No re-join in progress
• Nebula sorting issues
• Rank not implement yet
• 30 team kills max
• Framerate issues
• Balance issues – please head to the forums to speak your mind
• Death notifications no present

If you spot something not mentioned above, we're all ears. You can head to the Fractured Space forums at any time to share your thoughts with us, or head to http://www.fracturedbugs.com to submit a more formal bug. Or you can get in touch the old-fashioned way and ping us a note on support@edgecasegames.net

There's still a long road ahead, but we're keen to bring you along the ride. We'll be updating the game as regularly as possible, and jumping in to join you for a battle at every opportunity - with any luck you'll soon get to know us and say hi. We have a Mumble set up for team speak and interaction with us here in the studio - so throw on a head set and join us if that's your bag.

That's about it for this post -- do join us on the [link]forums[/link] to let us know what you think of the game, and we'll see you in battle soon.

Jamin
Edge Case Games Community Manager